I've been singing a little Dennis Leary today
"Life's gonna suck when you grow up, you grow up, you grow up. Life's gonna suck when you grow up...sucks pretty bad right now."
I sincerely hope I am not putting myself too far out there to say that this week I have seriously contemplated the relative comfort of diving into a full fledged nervous breakdown just so I can go live in a padded room for awhile.
Then I remembered that they probably wouldn't let me bring my knitting needles and I changed my mind.
In a tongue-in-cheek manner, I refer to myself as an expat. This week, however, I have really felt like one. It takes a really rough time to make me miss the (relative) comfort of my itty bitty Georgia hometown and I cannot even express how much I would like to be there right now. People are always making 10 Lists and, for this week, here's mine:
The Top Ten Things Nobody Ever Tells You About Growing Up:
1. At a certain age, which is far younger than it ought to be, your body starts to rebel for no good reason. It will gain weight when you want to lose it, lose weight when you want to gain it, droop in all the wrong places, and puff up in others. You'll discover that your gray hair is a completely different texture than your other hair so even covering it with dye only helps minimally. And, here is the worst part: Sometimes you will hurt in places for NO GOOD REASON. Seriously, you'll just ache and not know why.
2. Everybody has some sort of mental issue. People who claim to be well balanced and perfectly sane have a mental issue too: They are LIARS. It may be depression, anxiety, a poor reaction to cold or heat, general malaise, or grumpiness for no reason, but you WILL feel crazy at times. And others will think you are crazy too.
3. This next one may or not apply to men, since I have never been one, but when they tell you that your hormonal changes will tone down after puberty, it is only slightly true. As women, we fluctuate until we hit menopause, and then we fluctuate a different way. Seriously, is being able to incubate babies a fair trade for this nonsense?
4. There will always be bullies and mean girls. You can be 57 and the CEO of a major corporation and someone will find a way to make you feel dumb, poorly dressed, like a terrible public speaker, unimaginative, unwelcome, whatever. You name it. Only in school you can fantasize that the meanies will grow up to be underemployed junkies with 12 ugly babies. Here, the meanies are friggin' C-Suite executives with 7 figure salaries and babies who make Kingston Rossdale look like a troll.
5. The more money you make, the more you need. This may seem difficult to understand until you live it but it is the most annoying thing ever.
6. No matter how good you are at what you do, sometimes you will feel lost, confused, and outclassed. You don't tell anybody but the pint of Haagen Daz you scarf after a long day of being berated by someone over something but there will be days when you wonder how you dress yourself in the morning.
7. Relationships are frigging hard. You may be in one with your soul mate who makes you happier than anyone you've ever met and you will still fight, hurt each others' feelings, and sometimes stick your foot in your mouth.
8. The loss of your first love does not hurt the most. Far from it. Every time you think you have found the one and it ends, you are going to wish you were dead. That feeling that you cannot breathe through the pain, it doesn't get easier or go away. You will (if you are lucky) love a few people in very different ways and, ultimately, it won't work out with most of them. And damn will it hurt. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
9. The people you love will get sick, have tough times, suffer sometimes, and many will die. You will watch your parents age. They'll slow down and you will find yourself worrying about them like they worried about you. You'll also learn that those folks who raised you are genuinely incredible. You'll remember when you slammed the door and said you hated your mom and realize how deeply that must have hurt her. And you will feel like crap. You'll realize that your folks (in most cases) did the best they could and you'll want to take back so many times you screwed up and said something cruel. And then you will recognize that they never stopped loving you, not even when you showed up drunk at 4am and yelled at them because they were scared and upset. And you'll hope every day for more time with the people you love.
10. Time is the most precious thing you have. And (hopefully) you will learn to stop and absorb some of the amazing things. And your luck will hit you at strange times. You may be watching TV with your mom, petting your dog, watching your child sleep, or looking across the room at the other imperfect person who makes you feel like a fallible and yet lovable human being. And, if your are fortunate, you'll remember to express your feelings in those moments. Because the time will run out before you know it.
When I was little, my Dad introduced me to Kathy Mattea's music. And I used to listen to her sing:
"You've got to sing like you don't need the money, love like you'll never get hurt. You've got to dance, like nobody's watching. It's gotta come from the heart if you want it to work."
And every week like this one, when I hurt so much, I listen to that song and wish someone had prepared me for how much adulthood was going to suck...and not suck.
I'll step down from my soapbox now. But...do me a favor...and hug someone today. I promise you'll both benefit.
NoM
~ EK
"Life's gonna suck when you grow up, you grow up, you grow up. Life's gonna suck when you grow up...sucks pretty bad right now."
I sincerely hope I am not putting myself too far out there to say that this week I have seriously contemplated the relative comfort of diving into a full fledged nervous breakdown just so I can go live in a padded room for awhile.
Then I remembered that they probably wouldn't let me bring my knitting needles and I changed my mind.
In a tongue-in-cheek manner, I refer to myself as an expat. This week, however, I have really felt like one. It takes a really rough time to make me miss the (relative) comfort of my itty bitty Georgia hometown and I cannot even express how much I would like to be there right now. People are always making 10 Lists and, for this week, here's mine:
The Top Ten Things Nobody Ever Tells You About Growing Up:
1. At a certain age, which is far younger than it ought to be, your body starts to rebel for no good reason. It will gain weight when you want to lose it, lose weight when you want to gain it, droop in all the wrong places, and puff up in others. You'll discover that your gray hair is a completely different texture than your other hair so even covering it with dye only helps minimally. And, here is the worst part: Sometimes you will hurt in places for NO GOOD REASON. Seriously, you'll just ache and not know why.
2. Everybody has some sort of mental issue. People who claim to be well balanced and perfectly sane have a mental issue too: They are LIARS. It may be depression, anxiety, a poor reaction to cold or heat, general malaise, or grumpiness for no reason, but you WILL feel crazy at times. And others will think you are crazy too.
3. This next one may or not apply to men, since I have never been one, but when they tell you that your hormonal changes will tone down after puberty, it is only slightly true. As women, we fluctuate until we hit menopause, and then we fluctuate a different way. Seriously, is being able to incubate babies a fair trade for this nonsense?
4. There will always be bullies and mean girls. You can be 57 and the CEO of a major corporation and someone will find a way to make you feel dumb, poorly dressed, like a terrible public speaker, unimaginative, unwelcome, whatever. You name it. Only in school you can fantasize that the meanies will grow up to be underemployed junkies with 12 ugly babies. Here, the meanies are friggin' C-Suite executives with 7 figure salaries and babies who make Kingston Rossdale look like a troll.
5. The more money you make, the more you need. This may seem difficult to understand until you live it but it is the most annoying thing ever.
6. No matter how good you are at what you do, sometimes you will feel lost, confused, and outclassed. You don't tell anybody but the pint of Haagen Daz you scarf after a long day of being berated by someone over something but there will be days when you wonder how you dress yourself in the morning.
7. Relationships are frigging hard. You may be in one with your soul mate who makes you happier than anyone you've ever met and you will still fight, hurt each others' feelings, and sometimes stick your foot in your mouth.
8. The loss of your first love does not hurt the most. Far from it. Every time you think you have found the one and it ends, you are going to wish you were dead. That feeling that you cannot breathe through the pain, it doesn't get easier or go away. You will (if you are lucky) love a few people in very different ways and, ultimately, it won't work out with most of them. And damn will it hurt. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
9. The people you love will get sick, have tough times, suffer sometimes, and many will die. You will watch your parents age. They'll slow down and you will find yourself worrying about them like they worried about you. You'll also learn that those folks who raised you are genuinely incredible. You'll remember when you slammed the door and said you hated your mom and realize how deeply that must have hurt her. And you will feel like crap. You'll realize that your folks (in most cases) did the best they could and you'll want to take back so many times you screwed up and said something cruel. And then you will recognize that they never stopped loving you, not even when you showed up drunk at 4am and yelled at them because they were scared and upset. And you'll hope every day for more time with the people you love.
10. Time is the most precious thing you have. And (hopefully) you will learn to stop and absorb some of the amazing things. And your luck will hit you at strange times. You may be watching TV with your mom, petting your dog, watching your child sleep, or looking across the room at the other imperfect person who makes you feel like a fallible and yet lovable human being. And, if your are fortunate, you'll remember to express your feelings in those moments. Because the time will run out before you know it.
When I was little, my Dad introduced me to Kathy Mattea's music. And I used to listen to her sing:
"You've got to sing like you don't need the money, love like you'll never get hurt. You've got to dance, like nobody's watching. It's gotta come from the heart if you want it to work."
And every week like this one, when I hurt so much, I listen to that song and wish someone had prepared me for how much adulthood was going to suck...and not suck.
I'll step down from my soapbox now. But...do me a favor...and hug someone today. I promise you'll both benefit.
NoM
~ EK
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